ADVERTISING FOR AGRICULTURAL INPUTS - THE ORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND EMPIRICAL RESULTS

The German farmers but. inputs for 33 billion DM p. a. This market has a greater volume than the market for all plant products. But agricult ural economics normally does nor deal with the marketing problem of a firm, which has to sell products to the farm sector. German agricultur al economics are not prepared for a professional marketing job in sell ing products to the farmers. So the marketing and advertising strategi es of the input industry is relative unprofessional. This article desc ribes the advertising behaviour of the pesticide industry. Empirical r ests demonstrate, that the advertising behaviour of the most suppliers is not according to normative Fries theory and information economics. Advertising strategies, which are based on normative theory, can sign ificantly reduce the marketing costs of the input industry.